Digital Tracing and Social Control in Pandemic-Era China

• In Event: The Power of Information and Disinformation in a Comparative Context

Abstract

It remains a puzzle why authoritarian countries demonstrate varying degrees of enthusiasm for using digital surveillance as a tool of social control. Even in China, a leading force in digital surveillance, local authorities vary widely in their willingness and capacity to adopt digital technology for monitoring their citizens. This research seeks to understand the authoritarian adoption of digital surveillance by focusing on digital tracing in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on in-depth field research and comparative case studies of local communities, we find that urbanized communities with atomized residents tend to rely more on digital tracing (e.g., health code, travel code, and site code) to fulfill pandemic control tasks; by contrast, rural communities with tight-knit social networks tend to rely more on the traditional tool of human monitoring (e.g., grid management, neighborhood informants, and thought work) to keep the residents in line. Therefore, we argue that the adoption of digital technology hinges on the strength of social ties in the communities and the cost-effectiveness analysis of local authorities. Although digital technology can empower social control, the digital tracing system incurs data loopholes and administrative costs that authoritarian rulers cannot ignore.

Authors

• Dakeng Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Jing Vivian Zhan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong